


How The Years Fly By

by librisdedita



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 09:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/librisdedita/pseuds/librisdedita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia's past meets Allison's future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shadows of the Past

When Lydia Martin was five years old, someone from the school office pulled her out of class.

“I’m afraid your mummy’s not very well, so your daddy’s going to take you to your gran’s until she’s feeling better. He’s just waiting outside for you.”

Lydia walked with the lady, holding her hand, to the car park.

That was the last time she’d held someone’s hand willingly. 

 

Her dad had grabbed her, pushed her into the car, yelling all the time about how she was an ungrateful brat, sucking her mother’s life away and never giving anything back, just whining and taking, more, more, more.

She never understood until much, much later what had happened that day. She stayed at her grandmother’s for a couple of weeks, scared and uncertain about what was happening, picking up the strain and worry in the adults around her, hearing the tense phonecalls and the muffled sobs. Trying to stay out of the way and be on her best behaviour, lest someone shout at her again.

No-one ever did explain to her what happened. All she took in, young but not stupid, was that her mother wasn’t well, and somehow it was her fault. And if she didn’t do better, she’d get shouted at again and hurt her mother again.

So she learnt to be perfect. Or, if she couldn’t achieve perfection, to fake it so well that no-one could tell the difference.

It was easier when she was young. Simpler, at least. All it took was to do well in school, be nice to people, have friends, and keep her room tidy. It was generally possible to do that and still enjoy life. After all, her parents weren’t unreasonable.

High school made things a bit more difficult. Lydia discovered, after a few weeks, that it wasn’t ‘cool’ to be smart. Wasn’t ‘cool’ to be seen thinking about work at all. (However, it wasn’t ‘cool’ to fail either. Gods alone knew who drew up these ludicrous rules. Lydia certainly didn’t.) 

She learnt to dress, and, later, how to dress provocatively and smartly at the same time. She learnt how to use make-up so that she looked perfect, all the time. Learnt to ace her exams without appearing to do any work; how to always be the popular girl; how to entice boys and be charming to girls. Essentially, how to be the alpha bitch.

And her mother smiled, proud of her successful daughter. Her dad bought beer for the parties she threw and gave her a car as soon as she was old enough to drive. Her grandparents doted on her, showering her with presents.

Lydia Martin was the perfect high school girl.

And she never, ever let it slip how much she hated that.

How much she hated having an endless string of boyfriends, always pawing her, only interested in her looks. How much she hated endlessly interacting with people, being charming and sociable all the time. How much she hated parties, with the smell of beer and the insipid conversation; then the return home, completing assignments in the dead of night. How much she hated pretending not to be interested in her schoolwork, in learning for learning’s sake.

Because that might hurt her mother. She wouldn’t be the perfect daughter any more. Anything could happen, and none of it good.

It was ironic that the only one to spot any of this was Stiles, the boy with the hopeless crush on her. Admittedly, he was kind of cute, but she couldn’t risk her reputation looking at him for more than half a second. Still, he’d seen, somehow. Told her he knew how clever she was. She’d almost forgotten herself, by that point. Forgotten that there was a real person under the façade. Maybe she ought to be grateful to him. Although he’d probably never stop crowing if she told him so.

She was dating Jackson, at that point. Kind of an asshole, but at least he was captain of the lacrosse team, and in the swim team. He was also exceptionally jealous. In all honesty, Lydia felt more uncomfortable with him than she had in years; she just wasn’t sure how to dump him without it backfiring on her.

A while back, there’d been a new girl – Allison Argent – come to the school. Lydia had welcomed her and made friends with her, as was her rôle with those who seemed ‘cool’ enough. (She’d written down an algorithm and everything.) She’d immediately started dating Stiles’ daft best friend Scott – seriously, did neither of them have any depth of feelings or restraint? Whatever. It wasn’t Lydia’s place to care.

Allison was pretty, yes. Not particularly clever, but nowhere near stupid either. Made moderately interesting conversation (when she wasn’t talking/pining over Scott). Didn’t drink much. But the thing that always held Lydia’s interest was this: she never expected anything from her. That was new. People always had expectations, in Lydia’s experience.

So Lydia cultivated her friendship, was there when she needed it, made sure she was okay at parties, and the like. She was aware this could be slightly creepy, but what the hell. She liked being around Allison. It was relaxing. 

It was inevitable, really, that Allison would break up with Scott in the end. Parental opposition is a bitch, especially when your mother has just died and your father is overprotective. Lydia nursed her through that as best she could, being around when Allison wanted someone and leaving her in peace when she didn’t. She did, occasionally, think of asking her out, but she couldn’t afford the damage to her reputation of coming out at school. That would never do. She shuddered just to think of it, the repercussions of it, bringing down all the armour she’d worked so hard to put up for all those years. 

Then, one day, when they were curled up together after Allison had been crying and flailing and shouting, when it had all gone quiet, Allison reached up and kissed her.

There was a moment of absolute silence.

Then Lydia wrenched herself away, and Allison fell back, stammering apologies and trembling and sobbing and begging Lydia to forgive her and still be her friend, and promising her it would never happen again.

That last broke Lydia’s heart, just a little. She soothed Allison, told her it was okay and hugged her until she calmed down, falling asleep in her arms.

Lydia sat awake all night, holding Allison while she slept, thinking long and hard about what she should do next. It was clear Allison wouldn’t make another move. It was equally clear that she wanted to.

As for Lydia?

Lydia had fallen in love for the first time.


	2. No Time Like The Present

Lydia spent two days wondering what to do, what to say, how not to mess this up.

Then she decided enough was enough, and called the one person who might take her seriously. Stiles.

“Hello, hello, who is this?”

“Lydia speaking. I need to talk to you, Stiles; can I come over at some point?”

“You need to – sure! Whenever you please! My dad’s on shift right now, if it’s urgent…”

“Excellent. I’ll be there in ten.”

No time like the present, after all.

Stiles was at the door when she got there, and she could hear the kettle already boiling. She wondered, briefly, what Stiles was expecting to happen, what he thought her motivations were. He was surely smart enough not to think she’d suddenly come to her senses and realised how much better a man he was than Jackson, and had immediately fallen head over heels in love with him…

…Shit. He probably was thinking that, wasn’t he?

She waited while he made them both coffee – “because your phone call sounded like you might need it for whatever’s happening” (good, so he probably didn’t think this was a romantic occasion) – sat down, and took a deep breath.

“Stiles, can I tell you something?”

He listened patiently to what she told him, starting from her mother and spanning eleven years of school, socialising, and home; rested a hand on her shoulder when she started to tear up telling him so much that she’d kept hidden for all these years; rescued her coffee when her hand started shaking enough that it might spill.

“Shh, Lydia. Breathe. It’s okay.”

She finished at last, and tensed herself, waiting for his reaction. It wasn’t long in coming.

“Shit, Lydia.”

She laughed despite herself; so very typical of Stiles.

“Did you ever find out what happened to your mom that day?”

“They never told me. I’ve seen antidepressants in my mom’s room; my dad keeps the sleeping tablets in a locked drawer in his desk. It’s not hard to figure out.”

Stiles scrunched up his face and sucked in his breath.

“So, basically, you’ve fallen in love with Allison – Allison, seriously, I mean she’s nice enough, oh and batshit insane at times, I knew there was a reason I didn’t trust her – right, yes. You’ve fallen for Allison-the-crossbow-wielder because you feel safe around her. Skipping over how ridiculous it is to feel safe exclusively round the one girl who’s tried to kill most of us, and over the fact that I knew you long before she did, you want my help in asking a girl out without it wrecking your social standing, yes?”

“….Yes. And my parents. I can’t disappoint them. Not again.”

“Lydia, you do know that it’s not your fault, right?”

“Huh?”

“It’s – oh god, Lydia, you have to have understood this – no matter what bullshit your dad spewed at you, it’s not your fault that your mom tried to kill herself. Any more than it’s my fault my mom died.” He flinched a little, and Lydia thought of reaching out to touch him, as he’d done to her, but he recovered himself quickly. She shook her head instead, unable to let all her guilt go just like that.

“Is it the first time someone’s told you this?”

She nodded.

“….Is it the first time you’ve even told anyone? Jeez, Lydia, flattered as I am, you really should have told someone long, long ago.”

“I couldn’t. That-“

“Would hurt your parents. I get it. Okay, well you’ve told me now, and I will help as much as I can.”

“Thank you.” She really meant it, and hoped that it showed in her voice.

“No problem. I promise, I’ll always listen if you need me, okay? Now, as to your current problem – you know what, Lydia? If you just ask her out with enough confidence, enough panache, I think the school might follow you. You never know; you might even make lesbianism the next in thing!”

Lydia giggled a little at that, but shook her head.

“Come on, Lyds. You know how much they idolise you. And no-one’s hurt Danny. It would work, I’m sure of it. Just need to make a decent plan. And I’m awesome at plans. You definitely came to the right person here.”

They spent a couple of hours discussing various ideas, which required that Lydia then go shopping. With Stiles, since he insisted on coming to.

“Hey, I’m totally awesome at shopping, I’ll have you know! I just don’t get the chance!”

“…I’m not going to believe you while you’re wearing those shirts, Stiles.”

“What? Plaid is very stylish, I’ll have you know.”

Lydia rolled her eyes and grabbed her car keys.

The next day, Allison found a rose stuck in the corner of her locker. She blushed and laughed; told Lydia about it, confused as to who could have put it there. Lydia smiled, liking to see Allison looking even a little like normal, like there might be some shard of life left for her, poking through her black misery.

The day after, she found a pink ribbon round the strap of her bag, a simple bracelet with a heart dangling from it. She played with it for the rest of the day, fiddling with the pendant in Chemistry, wrapping it round and round her finger during English, pulling it round her wrist while she picked at her lunch. Lydia watched her, grateful for the first time that she didn’t have to concentrate on what was being said in class. She’d known Allison was romantic as hell, but it was still quite cute to see it directed her way.

Even though Allison didn’t know it was her.

Ah well.

For the next couple of weeks, Allison kept finding tiny romantic gifts in various different places. She oohed and aahed over them, face beginning to light up for the first time in what felt like forever to Lydia. More and more of the school began to notice, comments ranging from ‘how wonderfully romantic’ to ‘bah, how sickening’. Lydia almost wanted to keep it like this, just sending Allison little things to make her smile, so she need never knew who gave them. So that Lydia might not endanger her perfect house of cards.

Stiles saw this, somehow; she never quite knew how, but Stiles had always seen more than anyone else. He gave her a pep talk about it, flailing his arms wildly and insisting that she needed to go for it, that she’d always be sorry if she didn’t, that they’d be so awesome together (‘and also hot, no, no Lydia, I didn’t just say that’). If she’d thought about it at all, she’d have expected him to be jealous and not to want to have anything to do with her endeavour; instead, he did all he could to help her do what she wanted to. It was almost touching, really.

And so the last secret present to Allison was a note, written in fountain pen on paper as white as Lydia’s perfect kitchen cabinets. 

_Allison, you know that I, the gift-giver, must have some interest in you? It’s true. I love you. I want to be with you. I hope that you might feel the same. Will you be my girlfriend? -Lydia_

Lydia slipped it into Allison’s French book, watched her read it, over and over, from across the room. Watched her stare at the pages of her work with sudden intensity, and felt a horrible pit in her stomach.

She’d been stupid. Hadn’t she? She shouldn’t have listened to Stiles. Everyone knew Stiles was a spaz. Everyone knew Allison was still hung up over Scott. She tore holes in her own work with her pen, digging it into the paper as if she could make it bleed.

She avoided Allison for the rest of the day, pretending that nothing was the matter. Avoided Stiles, too, who kept trying to talk to her. Argued furiously with Jackson when he told her to stop being so mopey and just get over herself, and finally, finally dumped him as publicly as he deserved. She drove home with the image of his shocked and disbelieving face before his eyes, words rising to his lips as she’d stalked away.

She made herself some hot chocolate and hid in her bedroom, absorbing herself deep in her work. Telling herself that nothing mattered anyway, that she just had to get good grades and it’d be okay somehow. Writing furiously and fast, in French and English and Latin.

Until the doorbell rang.

She sighed, and dragged herself downstairs, glaring through the little peephole and opening the door before her brain registered that it was Allison standing there.

Allison. Who looked white and a little shaky, but who took a deep breath, leaned forwards to kiss Lydia’s cheek, and whisper to her ‘of course I will. Of course’.


End file.
